Embenchime River 66 N 97 E 9:15 a.m. local, 9:15 p.m. EDT 70°F high 53°F low rainy with gusting wind Dr. Ranson Reports: This evening I have to admit – I am tired. I was out of my tent and working around camp by 7:30 this morning. We reached our field sites about 11, and […]
EO’s Satellite Puzzler: July 2012
Every month, NASA Earth Observatory will offer up a puzzling satellite image here on Earth Matters. The second puzzler is above. Your challenge is to use the comments section below to tell us what part of the world we’re looking at, when the image was acquired, and what’s happening in the scene. Bonus points if […]
Siberia 2012: On the Banks of the Embenchime
Daily Report from Dr. Jon Ranson Embenchime River 66 N 97 E 9:00 a.m. local, 9:00 p.m. EDT 65°F high 52°F low Sunny It is a beautiful day on the Embenchime! The sun is shining, the skies are clear with just a few clouds scattered in the sky. We’re 282 miles in a straight line […]
Siberia 2012: A Slow and Smoky Arrival
Daily report from Dr. Jon Ranson: Tura, Siberia July 9, 9:10 p.m. Local Siberia; 9:10 a.m. next day EST High 74°F Low 45°F We have arrived! We are now Tura, at our home away from home, at the field camp. It’s been a long journey, but here we are – on the brink of starting […]
A Unique View of Wildfire Smoke
We publish a lot of wildfire imagery on our natural hazards page (particularly after the wildfire season ramped up recently in Colorado and other states in the western U.S.) Most of the imagery is acquired during the day by instruments on polar-orbiting satellites: the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on Aqua and Terra, the Advanced Land […]
Siberia 2012 – Embenchime River Expedition: Introduction
To many people, the Arctic is an almost unimaginably remote area at the end of the Earth – more a land of fable and fantasy than a real part of the everyday world. Most people have very little day-to-day connection with the forests, the fields, and the people who are all part of the vast […]
Siberia 2012: Embenchime River Expedition – Biographies
Dr. Jon Ranson is an earth scientist specializing in radar and lidar remote sensing of forests. He uses these tools for studying vegetation type and biomass in ecosystem research at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. He also serves as the Chief of Goddard’s Biospheric Science Laboratory, which is advancing the use of […]
Notes from the Field – Week 4
Grant Wiseman Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Another hot and dry week here in southern Manitoba has us missing the rain just a little bit. We have experienced a very nice dry down cycle in weeks 3 and 4 after a wet up period initially in weeks 1 and 2. By all accounts this will contribute […]
Musings from SMAPVEX12 Winnipeg
Narendra Das Jet Propulsion Laboratory I am signing off from SMAPVEX12 at Winnipeg with good vibes, pleasant memories and expectation that this will be a very successful campaign. I hope that, like me, most of my teammates have learnt substantially about the study area and had a great field sampling experience, and have also made […]
Derecho Downs Trees from Indiana Eastward
On June 29, 2012, a long-lived, fast-moving windstorm blew over the eastern United States. The storm started in northwestern Indiana and, over the next 10 hours, traveled roughly 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) toward the East Coast. Wind speeds matched those of an EF-1 tornado in places. The storm uprooted trees, damaged homes, smashed cars, downed […]